"Contested understandings of concepts of racial and ethnic discrimination: a critical exploration"

Open Lectures Spring/Summer 2018

  • Date: Mar 8, 2018
  • Time: 02:15 PM - 04:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: John Wrench (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim)
  • John Wrench is Visiting Professor in the Centre for Diversity and Inclusion at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, and Honorary Professor at the Department of Culture and Global Studies’ Aalborg University. Until 2010 he was senior researcher at the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights in Vienna, responsible for European comparative research projects on migration. He has researched and published for many years in the area of ethnic inclusion and discrimination in the labour market, first at the University of Warwick, and later at the University of Southern Denmark. His publications include Diversity Management and Discrimination: Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities in the EU, Ashgate (2007), and Equal Opportunities and Ethnic Inequality in European Labour Markets: Discrimination, gender and policies of diversity, University of Amsterdam Press, (with Karen Kraal and Judith Roosblad), 2009.
  • Location: MPI-MMG, Hermann-Föge-Weg 11, Göttingen
  • Room: Library Hall
"Contested understandings of concepts of racial and ethnic discrimination: a critical exploration"

For more details please contact buethe(at)mmg.mpg.de.

A number of concepts relating to racial/ethnic discrimination have been used inconsistently in academic and policy literature. Whilst direct racist discrimination is perhaps the easiest type to understand, as rooted in racism and ethnic prejudice, many other types – e.g. ’structural’ or ’institutional’ discrimination – have little to do with an identifiableperpetrator, and are more contested in their meaning. Focusing primarily on the sphere of employment, the paper begins by describing the types of ethnic discrimination that are most commonly found in the literature. Through a process of cross-classification, ways are suggested of reducing the ambiguities surrounding many of these concepts, with a proposed clarification of the conceptual boundaries of each type. It is also proposed that some new ’types’ may be usefullyadded to the more recognised categories of discrimination. Finally, a number of further questions are raised regarding the implications of the typology for ways of investigating and combating ethnic discrimination in employment.

The presentation is based on a working paper which is available at: http://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/42806


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